Sonny Seiler
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Frank W. "Sonny" Seiler (born February 20, 1933) is a Savannah, Georgia attorney who, despite much success in the courtroom, is best known as the owner of perhaps the world's most famous line of canine royalty. Since the 1950s, he and his family have cared for and maintained the unbroken line of mascots of the University of Georgia Bulldogs, known successively as Uga I - VI.
The family received the first member of the line (today referred to as Uga I) in 1956, when Seiler was a second-year student at the University of Georgia School of Law and newly married to the former Cecelia Gunn. The new puppy was said to be the grandson of a white English bulldog who traveled with the Georgia football team for the 1943 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
After Uga I was brought into the stadium during the first football game of 1956, athletic department officials asked Seiler to have Uga attend subsequent games. This began a tradition of Uga or one of his descendants being present at every University of Georgia football game, home and away, that is now approaching 50 years. His fifth successor, Uga VI, who, like his progenitors, is a pure white English bulldog, is the current vanguard of this tradition. In its April 28, 1997 issue, Sports Illustrated magazine named Uga the nation's best college mascot. Uga has been the only dog allowed in the state building in Georgia, and summer of 2006 was the 50th anniversary of the Uga line.
Seiler is also known for his legal practice in Georgia, and is a past president of the State Bar of Georgia. He was the lawyer who defended Jim Williams in the book and movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," set in Savannah. Because of his and Uga's role in the book, Seiler ended up being cast in the film, and has since been cast in two other movies filmed in Savannah, "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and "The Gingerbread Man."
Seiler is a senior partner at Bouhan, Williams & Levy LLP, one of the most well-known and highly-regarded firms in Savannah, Georgia, which was featured prominently in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". The firm's office, the Armstrong House, as well as other locations in Savannah, were also featured in the original 1962 version of the film "Cape Fear" starring Gregory Peck.
